Don Juan in Hades
by Halcyon Seraphim
Summary: A tale of Christine's and Erik's earliest encounters. EC, rated for, er, pseudosmut.


**Don Juan in Hades**

Pairing: EC (Erik/Christine)  
Rating: M (I have way too many of these…)

Warning(s): This fic is not rated M for obscene language or appalling violence. Or horror. Which leaves just about everything else.

Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera, or Charles Baudelaire's poetry (which I shamelessly stole for my purposes).

Dedication: Melody of Oblivion. (pets)

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_You are a sky of autumn, pale and rose;_

_But all the sea of sadness in my blood_

_Surges, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose,_

_Salt with the memory of the bitter flood_.

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He rather enjoyed the autumn.

Erik delicately perused the piano keys of his eternally patient instrument, gracing them with an occasional tap in a random, beatific assortment of notes and symphonies, while his mind similarly entertained the caprices of uncoordinated ruminations. Yes, he noted as his dexterous fingers stumbled from one ivory key to the next, autumn was a faultless metaphor for the passage of his life—a perfectly cohesive mélange of morbidity and perpetuity. Its advent was without fail, arriving in the guise of beauty, in a dastardly cloak of red, orange, and yellow. And as did most beautiful things, autumn, too, would shed its deceptive swathe in favor of a bitter cold that stripped bare all the waking world, forsaking it in tatters, in vulnerability.

Indeed, he deemed it quite fitting that such a fallaciously cruel time would deliver into his hands a being of equal idolatry—that of Christine Daae, autumn's very daughter, herself blessed with splendor and condemned by loss.

"This will be your room, child," she had been informed, ushered in from the irreverent cold into chambers dimly lit and poorly warmed. It was a squalid, derelict room—hardly befitting a composition of such precarious beauty—but had nevertheless evinced a shy, grateful smile from the cherubim.

"Thank you," she had responded, her rosy cheeks bunching as the smile widened despite the spiteful temperature.

And she was left alone.

The miniature caricature of the very same cold that tore into her set about rearranging the poor quarters, vocalizing some ancient tune with a timid and yet strong voice, formulating ululations which rebounded off the walls of the room. And echoed in the rumored catacombs where Erik, their spurious wanderer, lurked purposefully. The melody wafted into the black halls—sweet, enticing, entrancing—and Erik, himself a lover of beauty and an appreciator of the purity of soul that could possibly produce such indelible music, understood the language in which she spoke.

For her music was the accompaniment to his—she sang, in the shroud of her child's innocence, of loss and of longing, of experience palpable and yet unfathomable. And Erik knew that he would tame this skillful little bird, conduct her wondrous voice with his own, bring her to a deific glory that would make his talents known to the world that had denied him acceptance—that had rendered him a hushed, cowering husk restricted to an underground lair of dampness and darkness…unable to revel in autumn's gorgeous ruse.

Erik smiled in recollection of that abounding determination, and of his egregious miscalculation. For he had, however foolishly, failed to consider the fondness he would develop for Christine Daae, for the wreath of brown curls that encapsulated her face, for her own unabashed determination and the way her eyebrows would intersect in the center of her forehead, furrowed in the stanch desire to please her "Angel of Music."

He remembered how he had found himself enthralled by the moments when he directed her voice, when she surrendered to him with neither frown nor complaint, when her eyes darted madly about the room in a vain effort to discover which crevice he hid himself within. With an audible noise, he covered the ivories, glancing at the clock, and rising from his seat before the pianoforte. Recollection had no place in any daily itinerary, and Christine was awaiting his arrival—regardless, no opaque remembrance could supplant the sensations of melody and concord that he experienced outside of their eruditely appointed classroom.

And yet, he observed, as his deft footsteps trod soundlessly upon the pathway that led to his usual encampment, there was an unmistakable sea of sadness in his blood…and he knew not from whence it came. For he had failed to consider that in an effort to tame the bird, he would unknowingly confine her within his very own cage.

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_In vain your hand seeks my faint bosom o'er,_

_That which you seek, beloved, is desecrate_

_By woman's tooth and talon; ah, no more_

_Seek in me for a heart which those dogs ate_.

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There was evident disappointment in her eyes.

Erik wholly fathomed that his words were poison, that each vitriolic criticism he uttered lacerated the remaining tendrils of innocence that remained within his darling protégée. But she was autumn, and autumn embodied deception—and so Christine resumed her impeccable posture and sang another note, pausing after the exercise in expectant and yet terrified anticipation. Erik longed desperately to praise her precocious efforts, but his appointed status as master of madrigals and overtures could not permit such a travail, such a musical farce.

He heaved a soundless sigh and remarked, "Your performance is less than exemplary today, Christine. Is there a reason for your distraction?"  
"I've…no, Angel."

"If there is indeed a reason, please impart it upon me. I do not wish to teach where no knowledge is to be obtained. Remove from yourself all means of diversion." He was loath to maintain such an austere façade, but his position was, first and foremost, that of tutor and advisor, and in his eyes, praise was warranted solely by precision and excellence.

"Actually…there is something that I've been concerned about," she confessed tentatively. Erik blinked, slightly startled by her bluntness, her nonchalance. Never had his well-mannered, diligent disciple behaved in such a gruff and brazen manner, and he was intrigued to discover what had facilitated such conduct. "I…why have I never seen you, Angel?"

Erik searched his mind for an appropriate response. "Do you trust me, Christine?"

She was flushed. "Of-of course I do. I was merely…I wanted to see you in person."

"If you wish to learn from me, Christine," Erik intoned precisely, "then there is no reason for you and me to meet anywhere but in this room, and in this manner. I am your teacher and your guardian, and know that you have my constant presence for solace should you need it. Otherwise, I see no reason for you to require anything more. I see no reason for you to want to…_see _me." He fingers unconsciously traced the mask that concealed from the darkness his existence's crux, the callous deformity that had been dealt him by God like a poor hand of cards in a game in which he had bet life's every pleasure.

Christine never again mentioned the notion of a possible meeting between them, and by way of contrast seemed to pursue her studies more vehemently—her devotion was so profound that Erik found its very mimesis in her voice, in the manner in which she skillfully repeated his capriccios as though he no longer fostered any semblance of a challenge for her. It was as though Christine had resolved—through the only mechanism she had ever known could affect her brilliant and unreachable instructor—to succeed at every minute interval of an astounding spectrum of song.

Erik, however, had been quite adversely affected by her earnest request, finding himself in a near-perpetual state of cognitive upheaval. Having been shunned by the very dregs of humanity, his contact with women had been minimal—in fact, he had once declared to himself with a finite certainty that his solitary concern was the fabrication of art, and that in the world he had erected using naught but the machinations of his mind, there was no place for sublunary, worldly desires. He had no conceivable uses for the plump, well-groomed ladies that frequented the opera house in their shameless frippery, with minds as diaphanous as gauze, and tastes even less substantial. No, he had never before paid heed to the conceptualizations of flesh, of a woman's warmth. Upon Christine's request, however, he experienced an unadulterated wave of confounding emotion. In his fervent training and consistent compositions, he had failed to realize that Christine had matured—she was no longer a shivering, soot-stained child, and in his years of adulation of that humbling, overwhelming voice, he had somehow managed to overlook its keeper, had managed to forsake the legacy of the young woman that had germinated under his watchful gaze.

His notions became turbulence, turmoil, chaos—he abhorred and despaired, humanity became once more his bane, the entity that had torn and rended his once flesh-formed heart. His lessons became simultaneously an enchantment and a curse upon his quotidian existence.

Christine Daae had become his obsession, his infatuation, and his plague.

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_It is a ruin where the jackals rest,_

_And rend and tear and glut themselves and slay—_

_A perfume swims about your naked breast!_

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Darkness was his medium.

Erik had been born into onyx night, had first been gazed upon by apprehensive eyes before the flames of playful, innocuous candlelight. He had grown within night's all-encompassing majesty, had played with darkness, had adopted it as his incondite cape, and for these reasons, he wandered the opera house in twilight hours, befriending demons and their shadows.

This night, however, was portentous in its nature. It was alluring, inebriating, and transfixed—it guided Erik through the darkened corridors, corridors overrun by mold and decay, genuine catacombs for the passage of time. Brief, barely tactile sensations of wind alerted him to openings and turns, drew him finally to a chamber he had avoided for years—the vestibule that had first presented to him his esteemed charge. Carefully, deftly, he exited the wall's dank pathway, entered into a compartment he had once merely viewed as a somewhat inquisitive spectator, and wandered to the bedside of its petite inhabitant, gazing upon her placidly dozing frame. The chamber was as frigid as it had been those many years prior—they were in the throes of autumn, after all—but Christine appeared entirely unaffected. He watched with morbid fascination the rise and fall of her chest, in keeping with the cadence of her breathing. It was slow and continuous, and he was spellbound as he gazed upon that oblivious parcel of sweetness, made all the more enticing by propinquity.

Her scent. It permeated the air around her, drawing Erik in, hopelessly enmeshing him in the natural perfume she emitted. It warmed him, despite the wintriness of the room, impelled him to reach forward, clasping his adroit fingers around the blanket that adorned his pupil. He gently pulled it down, revealing with each leisurely, anticipatory tug skin possessing a hue akin to milk's whiteness, clad in an insubstantial nightgown. He touched his fingertips to the collar of the troublesome garment, tracing the ruffled expanse as his eyes traveled downward, drinking in the sight of her exposed form, the delicate curvature of her body. His exploratory fingers followed his line of sight, outlining each glorious indentation of her form before sensing a stirring beneath his invasive hand.

Christine, evidently a light sleeper, was roused from slumber by his silent interrogation, and Erik swiftly retracted his hand as her eyes fluttered open. Her sight was hazy and befuddled, but shortly her mystified senses obtained their former awareness and she rose, sitting and analyzing her room's newly-introduced occupant, squinting through the blessed darkness in fastidious efforts to discern his identity. Erik neither spoke nor breathed as Christine whispered an indiscernible inquiry into the darkness, into the illogical cold, yearning to resume his research into the well-oiled workings of this woman's body.

Christine, for her own part, eyed him confidently, a faint wisp of recognition splayed upon her features.

"…Angel?" she voiced hesitantly, tentatively. Erik chin moved downward of its own accord, confirming her suspicions. She extended an arm, closing her own fingers over his hand and drawing him closer to her bedside, looking up into his masked countenance with a blend of curiosity and adoration. She rose to her feet, cautiously balancing before her quarters' interloper, and reached up to trace her tutor's tense, clenched jaw line, to commence her own sensory exploration. No words were exchanged as she trailed her fingers down his chin and neck, as she placed her palm above his heart to feel its persistent beats, as though in confirmation of his presence. Indeed, silence resounded within every atrium of the opera house as Christine unlaced the ties of her Angel's cloak, allowing it to fall uselessly to the floor, returning her palms to his shoulders and steadying herself against them in an effort to verify his corporeality. Erik did not shift as Christine administered these feathery touches, as she reached down to intertwine their fingers.

And then she did something wholly unprecedented. Pulling him forward and using their joined hands as leverage, she touched her lips to his—smiling as she did so, smiling as she overcame him with a veritable wave of sensation, smiling as she forced open the floodgates of emotion and desire that resided within the very nexus of Erik's being. He inclined his head, drawing her closer, and eliminated the chastity of the interaction, kissing her with a heady mixture of passion and pathos he could not quite understand. His arms came to rest around her waist, encircling it and tracing the contours of her lacy garb, while Christine fixed her thin, elegant fingers upon the lacings of his shirt, removing them and finally the obtrusive garment they upheld. They pulled apart, breathing heavily, exultantly, and Erik, had he known Christine less than he did, would have attested to the brilliant sheen of mischievousness that glazed her eyes as she took a few steps backward, as she gripped his hand and transported him with her, laying down on her bed and pulling him down so that he hovered over her. Smiling almost shyly, she touched the white mask that garnished his features and shielded them from view, coaxing the rim of the mask in an effort to remove it. Abruptly, Erik grabbed her wrist, removing it from his means of disguise, gripping it savagely to prevent her from a revelation many had experienced, and many had spurned.

Christine, however, with her perennial patience, simply loosened his monstrous hold and leaned up, placing a virginal kiss on the white expanse. She claimed his hand and, without any veneer of hesitation, placed his palm over her breast by way of invitation…and Erik's response was immediate. He dipped forward, applying his ministrations to her ear before trailing his mouth down to the point just below the lobe, inducing gasps, moans, and shivers as Christine folded her knees, allowing him a place between them and causing the nightgown to pool around her waist. Helplessly, she reached for his trousers, her fingers stumbling over themselves as she tried desperately to untie and remove them. She finally succeeded in her endeavor, anchoring him in place with her thighs, encompassing his body with her arms in an effort to draw him closer. Erik positioned his palm on the side of her leg, caressing the smoothness in so potent a manner that Christine could only writhe beneath him, and ultimately trailing his hand to where the nightgown had collected, hooking it with his forefinger and bringing it up over her head. He discarded the garment, concentrating instead on descrying this new vastness of skin, exploring it with both touch and tongue before finally returning to her lips.

"Please…" she whispered, revoking the immaculate silence, tightening the hold of her thighs around his waist, urging him inside her. And Erik, though his mind issued myriad protestations against the deed and vociferously implored him to refrain from such bestial destruction of such ineffable purity, ceded to Christine's demands, entering her in one fluid motion. Christine could not stifle her gasp of pain as he pierced her to the hilt and could not quell the involuntary trickle of moisture that flowed from the corners of her eyes as she clenched them tightly, pulling him deeper and deeper inside her, frantic to erase the solitary place where he ended and she began. And as Erik increased momentum, as he hit a point inside her that caused his surroundings to evaporate in the welcomed, consecrated oblivion of climax, the darkness remained. And as she arched off the mattress, gasping in pain and in pleasure as Erik collapsed by her side, the darkness continued to serve its unwilling master.

The darkness reminded him that he had sullied what he had held most dear, and that he was and would forever remain its blackest tenant.

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_Beauty, hard scourge of spirits, have your way!_

_With flame-like eyes that at bright feasts have flared_

_Burn up these tatters that the beasts have spared!_

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END

**Note**: Honestly, I was iffy about writing this, and even iffier about posting it. The occurrence of my writing a fanfic for an obsession that has long since passed in incredibly unusual, and PotO is one such obsession. However, this was a Christmas present for a friend, and I did my best. I know I messed around with the plot of the movie/musical/book quite a bit, but I tried to pick a different perspective. This is by far not my best work, but I figured every writer is allowed a few shitty fanfics thrown in the mix. (It shows our growth, yo!) So while I'm not expecting heaps of praise…please, be gentle. T.T


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